Tro. Well know they what they speak that speak so wisely.[1653]
Cres. Perchance, my lord, I show more craft than love,[1654] 145
And fell so roundly to a large confession
To angle for your thoughts: but you are wise;[1655]
Or else you love not, for to be wise and love[1655][1656]
Exceeds man's might; that dwells with gods above.[1657]
Tro. O that I thought it could be in a woman— 150
As, if it can, I will presume in you—[1658]
To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love;[1659]
To keep her constancy in plight and youth,
Outliving beauty's outward, with a mind[1660]
That doth renew swifter than blood decays! 155
Or that persuasion could but thus convince me,[1661]
That my integrity and truth to you
Might be affronted with the match and weight
Of such a winnowed purity in love;[1662]
How were I then uplifted! but, alas! 160
I am as true as truth's simplicity
And simpler than the infancy of truth.
Cres. In that I'll war with you.
Tro. O virtuous fight,
When right with right wars who shall be most right![1663]
True swains in love shall in the world to come[1664] 165
Approve their truths by Troilus: when their rhymes,[1665]
Full of protest, of oath and big compare,
Want similes, truth tired with iteration,[1666]
'As true as steel, as plantage to the moon,[1667]
As sun to day, as turtle to her mate, 170
As iron to adamant, as earth to the centre,'
Yet, after all comparisons of truth,[1668]
As truth's authentic author to be cited,[1669]
'As true as Troilus' shall crown up the verse[1670]
And sanctify the numbers.
Cres. Prophet may you be! 175
If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth,
When time is old and hath forgot itself,[1671]
When waterdrops have worn the stones of Troy,
And blind oblivion swallow'd cities up,
And mighty states characterless are grated 180
To dusty nothing, yet let memory,
From false to false, among false maids in love,
Upbraid my falsehood! when they've said 'as false[1672]
As air, as water, wind, or sandy earth,[1673]
As fox to lamb, or wolf to heifer's calf,[1674] 185
Pard to the hind, or stepdame to her son,'
'Yea,' let them say, to stick the heart of falsehood,
'As false as Cressid.'
Pan. Go to, a bargain made: seal it, seal it; I'll be the
witness. Here I hold your hand; here my cousin's. If ever[1675] 190
you prove false one to another, since I have taken such pains[1676]
to bring you together, let all pitiful goers-between be called
to the world's end after my name; call them all Pandars;
let all constant men be Troiluses, all false women Cressids,[1677]
and all brokers-between Pandars! Say 'amen.' 195
Tro. Amen.
Cres. Amen.
Pan. Amen. Whereupon I will show you a chamber[1678]
with a bed; which bed, because it shall not speak of your[1678]
pretty encounters, press it to death: away![1679] 200